"Full Tilt Poker, a World-wide Ponzi Scheme, $440 Million of Players funds used to pay Board Of Directors"

On September 20th, 2011. That Tuesday morning, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Full Tilt Poker’s board members Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, and Rafe Furst of defrauding poker players out of more than $440 million over the past four years, with the help of CEO Ray Bitar.

Preet Bharara announced the filing of a motion to amend a forfeiture and civil money laundering complaint that was filed in April. After Tuesday’s amendments to April’s original indictment of Full Tilt Poker, the poker site is facing some major issues and problems. Several are questioning Full Tilt Poker's legitimacy and as time goes by one of the biggest poker sites in the world is now being called a "Global Ponzi Scheme". Manhattan’s U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement that “Full Tilt was not a legitimate poker company, but a Global Ponzi Scheme,” while “insiders lined their own pockets with funds picked from the pockets of their most loyal customers while blithely lying to both players and the public alike about the safety and security of the money deposited with the company." Federal prosecutors have drawn up an amended complaint that names Bitar, Lederer, Ferguson and Furst, adding them to the original complaint which was filed seeking $3 billion from Full Tilt Poker and unrelated poker companies, PokerStars and Absolute Poker. The proposed amended complaint claims that in 2008 and 2009 Full Tilt sent emails to its players and posted messages on online poker message boards, assuring players that “unlike some companies in our industry, we completely understand and accept that your account money belongs to you, not Full Tilt Poker.” But the new complaint claims that the company did not have enough funds to repay players and that by March 31 Full Tilt only had $60 million or so in its bank accounts while owing $390 million to players around the world, including $150 million to U.S. players. The aforementioned “FTP Insider Defendants” are liable to the government for a sum of money representing the amount of property, funds, or monetary instruments involved in the money laundering offenses in an amount that is no less than $41 million for Bitar; $41.8 million for Lederer; $25 million for Ferguson; and $11.7 million for Furst.

Federal prosecutors claim that Full Tilt’s board members got rich because the company used player funds to pay them massive amounts of money that largely was transferred to their accounts in Switzerland and other overseas locations. Specifically, the feds allege that Bitar pocketed $41 million and Lederer got $42 million. Jesus Ferguson allegedly was allocated $87 million in distributions and received at least $25 million, federal prosecutors claim. Another owner, described by the feds as a professional poker player, received at least $40 million in distributions, as well as millions of dollars more characterized as loans from Full Tilt that have only been partially repaid. At a rate of about $10 million per month, Full Tilt paid “distributions” to its board of directors, in addition to loaning money to various “professional” poker players. This summer Full Tilt alleged that well known Professional Poker Player Phil Ivey "borrowed" from the company, although he was not named in Tuesday's amendments.

Starting around August 2010, the company began noticing a difficulty in collecting funds from the bank accounts of depositors. The site secretly began to credit funds to players’ online gambling accounts that it had never actually collected. Full Tilt continued to operate as usual, paying millions to its stakeholders. U.S. government lawyers believe that Full Tilt Poker started to face a growing cash crunch in 2010 because it could not collect funds from U.S. players due to the federal government’s efforts to disrupt the payment processors that facilitate the flow of funds in the online poker industry. Indeed, Bharara’s office says that by August 2010 Full Tilt’s payment processing network had been severely disrupted and that the company could no longer withdraw money from U.S. players’ bank accounts. So instead, the feds claim, Full Tilt continued to credit player accounts without disclosing its inability to fund those credits, letting players make online poker bets with $130 million of “phantom funds” that resulted in a massive shortfall when other players won the bogus money in poker games.

The management of Full Tilt Poker, the feds say, “operated Full Tilt Poker with the hope that only a small number of players would try to withdraw funds at any one time, and that Full Tilt Poker would regularly receive additional deposits in amounts greater than any withdrawal requests.”

As players inevitably lost, $130 million in “phantom funds” existed within the site’s accounts. Despite concerns about what CEO Ray Bitar described as a “run on the bank,” by early 2011, the company was insolvent, but, again, continued making payments to the defendants.

According to the proposed complaint, when the U.S. government unsealed an indictment against Bitar and effectively shut down Full Tilt’s U.S. operation claiming it was an illegal gambling business in April, Full Tilt’s leaders realized they were facing a cash crunch but continued to accept foreign player funds while facing $300 million in liabilities. In June Lederer allegedly told others at Full Tilt that the company only had $6 million and Bitar worried in an internal email about a “run on the bank.”

At the present time, Full Tilt Poker nor the individual owners who received more than $443 million in distributions have repaid any of the hundreds of millions the company owes to it's loyal players around the world.

The site has publicly blamed various circumstances and scenarios for why it has not paid its players, as the company is allegedly looking for outside investors.

Full Tilt is currently in discussions with the Alderney Gambling Control Commission over its suspended license. Full Tilt has previously denied any wrongdoing and recently tried to explain its actions to its many irate customers, saying it had been a victim of a massive heist perpetrated by a payment processor and the U.S. government’s moves against the online poker industry. However it doesn't look good for what once was the second largest poker site in the world. For all the players that still have funds on Full Tilt Poker, Stealing Blinds and I wish you all the best and we all hope justice will be served!

This is the message all of us opened our poker sites up to see on Black Friday

Well yes ... Justin is a real news article and I understand it's written by you, must congratulate you!!!! About the article, I must show appreciation and reluctant to make comments! I think people have been fooled or have given or indeed shot. I do not think you can know about something and be indifferent to what happens, moreover, to continue to lend great poker players and friends at the same time, not to have coverage, to rely only on what you think you can affiliate players make great table .In my opinion, there are big doubts about this deal, so I give credit to government bodies empowered to solve it! I think more heads will fall! Otherwise all good and hopefully I'll see how quickly the tables at Full Tilt Poker!!!